Now we’re no strangers to our possessions getting broken at the hands of little ones. Xander has a frankly impressive record. There is a key difference though.

He has always rendered things obsolete as a result of either over exuberance or trying to see how they work.

Amelie just trashes the house the sake of it. I’m confident of this for a particular reason. She waits to be caught in the act before running away. If it weren’t for the damage she’s caused I would actually admire her chutzpah.

It all started when she began shaking water from a sippy cup onto the TV stand. She was, of course, told to stop but clearly saw this more as a dare than an instruction. She keeps doing it and the wood is already looking worse for wear.

In fact, the TV stand has become quite the toddler crime hotspot. Her second offence was to damage the Xbox by deliberately standing on it. Well, we’re pretty sure it was her. The only witness was Major Clanger and somebody has removed his ears. Suspicious…

Then at the weekend, she surpassed herself. In a two-minute window of opportunity, she scrawled crayon all over the kitchen cupboards. She took a biro to the dishwasher too – presumably crayon didn’t work.

Just to underline her ‘sorry, not sorry’ credentials, she repeated this particular offence. The following day, she smuggled some crayons into her bedroom and went to town on the walls and door.

We’ve got no idea why she’s doing it. She’s a wonderful little girl who doesn’t go short of attention. She is very well loved and very affectionate towards all of us. She does know what the word ‘no’ means but obviously doesn’t really care.

Maybe it’s just a boundary-testing phase that she’ll grow out of. I hope so as vandalism really doesn’t suit her.

She’ll be two years old next month and we’ve been deliberating over what to get her. I’m beginning to think an ASBO would be a good choice…

About me

I'm Tom Briggs. A proud dad of three and, somehow or other, the writer of a multi-award-winning dad blog.

I've been writing Diary of the Dad since 2010 and, despite being a pensioner in blogging terms now, still have the same enthusiasm for it as I did when I wrote my first post. I hope you enjoy reading my musings as much as I do writing them.

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